Vermilion Parish School employees want to hear about premiums

Nearly 100 school employees sat and listened to two health insurance pitches, and when it was over, some walked out of the meeting upset.
Sure, they heard the positives of what Blue Cross Blue Shield and United Healthcare have to offer clients. They heard the sales pitches that they are the two largest health insurance companies around.
Comparing apples to apples, the two insurance companies both offered around the same medical guaranteed discounts of 63 percent, along with almost the same administration cost.
The School Board Insurance Committee, who were at the meeting on Monday, will have a special meeting Thursday at 5:30 p.m. At the meeting they are expected to recommend on either Blue Cross Blue Shield or United Healthcare.
They will give their recommendation to the school board that same night and the board will then vote on it.
At Monday’s meeting, there was one thing the two insurance companies did not talk about, which was why most school employees went to a special insurance meeting in the first place.
“What about the monthly premiums? Why did no one talked about that?”
The reason no one talked about it is simple - the two insurance companies do not set monthly insurance premiums. The school board sets the premiums, not the insurance companies.
The school board is a self-funded insurance company of up to $175,000. What that means is that the school board pays 100 percent of the insurance claims that do not exceed $175,000.
So, if Bobby goes to the emergency room and the bill is $25,000, the school board pays the entire bill.
Each month, just over 1,500 school employees and retirees pay a premium that goes into the insurance fund. The school board has been collecting around $16 million a year into the fund or about $1.3 million a month.
Late last year, the school board approved putting in an additional $2 million into the insurance fund to help pay for the high claims. That $2 million has now dwindled down to $500,000.
The school board first has to decide to go with either Blue Cross Blue Shield or United Healthcare before they can talk premiums.
Once that is decided, then they will sit down with a representative from the insurance company and have them come up with different types of insurance plans and how much each plan will cost the employee.
The health insurance will only advise the school board what the premiums should be based on the type of coverage the employee has.
The better the coverage, the more it will cost the employee.